A Conservative government would favour a return to rote learning and setting pupils by ability to give all students a basic fact-based knowledge once they left school, the shadow schools spokesman, Nick Gibb, said today.

The Tories would strip away bureaucracy and return power to teachers in the classroom to decide how children learned, but there ought to be a debate about the philosophy around education and whether more traditional styles of teaching ought to be deployed, Gibb said.

His comments came in a fringe debate about the future of state education at the Conservative conference in Manchester today.

He revealed plans to review two key Labour reforms to the education curriculum: the early years foundation stage, dubbed the "nappy curriculum", and the government's flagship diplomas for those aged 14 to 19.

Gibb said that young people ought to be able to automatically recite the times tables, and "you have to know the map of Europe. It's the routine bits of knowledge that set you up for later life."

He went on: "I believe very strongly that children are of different abilities and need tailored education. Some children can't cope with academic lessons and flounder and misbehave. Other children become bored.

"If all children were set by ability I believe that we would see huge improvements."

Today the party also announced plans for a dozen 1950s-style technical schools, linked to universities, to create a new tier of high-status vocational training for teenagers. The plan is being pioneered by the former education secretary Lord Baker.

The shadow schools secretary, Michael Gove, taking part in the same fringe debate, organised by the Association for School and College Leaders and the teaching union NASUWT, pledged to strip away bureaucracy in education, issuing an open invitation for anyone to write to him with evidence of unnecessary red tape that they would like to see scrapped.

Gibb revealed plans to review the early years foundation stage, the Labour reforms that set basic targets for children to reach even before they start primary school that have proved highly controversial. Last week two Steiner nursery schools became the first to opt out of teaching the EYFS.

Gibb said: "The early years foundation stage has become a bureaucratic nightmare and it's typical of the bureaucratic approach to ed that we oppose. The idea that you have to fill in tick-boxes of 117 objectives ... We have to trust our professionals not have these forms asking whether a child can tie its shoelaces, hold a rattle. Ludicrous. Really we've got to get rid of that kind of approach to education."

On diplomas, he confirmed that the Conservatives would scrap the academic versions the government is proposing and review the structure of the vocational versions to strengthen them. This comes amid criticisms that the diplomas are complicated and costly, and after a slow take-up in their first year.